Ghost a la system
by WinterGlass
Summary: .. the story of a brilliant hackers assimilation into the world... and what happens when he meets an unfortunate end...


Gh!0!)s7

Dns le system

… Quietly ….

…Slowly…

Bathed in cool blue light spilling from her computer screen… a jostled head of navy hair emerged from under a dilapidated pile of sheets... What might have passed for a mattress a decade ago spilling a crusty yellow foam onto the greasy auburn carpeting around the diminutive presence… mottled bangs concealed it's eyes as it crept from under the ramshackle bedding.

Clad in an oversized, non-descript t-shirt that was hued like aged whitewash, and Stretched its creased way from her shoulders, all the way to past it's knobby, pale knees. Turning it's head towards the glowing monitor, and almost sliding across the floor, perched low to the ground on all fours like a large, awkward tabbi .Finally resting in front of the old, boxy screen which bathed the room in a steady azure wash. The faded casing resting sideways directly on the carpeting, it's many, twisting cords snaking back to an unseen CPU.

Drawing close to the buzzing pixel surface, clutching it with both sallow, thin arms, and righting it… still slowly… as if afraid of making the slightest whisper in the blank air of the close, distraught room…

Seeming content… yet still with an emotionless, stoic face… The little figure laid itself out, curled tightly into a ball, and drifted off to sleep. Bare against the hard floor… deep… inside the azure night…

Moonwinter Snow, by all accounts (of both the CC Corporation and otherwise), was an average denizen of "The world" .Possessing nothing rarer in his sparse inventory than the elusive "Evening Star" great scythe, a treasure befitting a neutral long arm such as him.

Tuned to a rather morose and stoic demeanor, his avatar's "skin" reflected that, being clad mainly in a strange cloak-like affair strung with a multitude of chains and other grim looking paraphernalia. Beneath the billowing cloak, lay a lithe figure, pale and smooth, and occupied by many a cryptic scrawl. Atop his bit shrouded face, flowed a thick mane of ebony tresses, which cascaded a raven course down the length of his glyphed back, which was adorned by a pair of knot work butterfly wings, past his waist and subtly ended with the gentlest of a flair.

Fond of biting winds and the delicate grace of snow, he was often found to be staring longingly across the cyber horizon in planes of ice and snow, perched upon the battlements of a cold, lonely fortress. Starring…and nothing more.

Billowing in the forever synthetic winds, his clock cast the facade of a lost phantom, just another beast in this world of snarling monsters and vexing puzzles, waiting for a hapless player to stumble across and defeat.

If he closed his eyes… and quieted his mind… he could almost feel it against his skin, cold and calming, without a trace of bite or chill. He was pleased that he could perceive such a thing. It being only a program locked in a humming bank of servers far across the sea. But without fail in a corner of his thought, he knew it was just a phantom sensation…

As if the prove it to himself wrong , he would snap his eyes open, in the vaguest hope of seeing a real landscape, lush with life before him. So far…it had failed… with but a minute's observation, he could extrapolate the programs pattern. Each minute, a faint gust would blow, grow to a mild whistle, then… catch itself and glide a little harder, then fall to a whisper… and begin again.

…Losing himself in his pensive meditation, he would often stay dormant for as long as an hour, then warp away with the oh-so-familiar vorpal whirl and the flicker of the golden rings.

Removing his head set, Shadi placed the instrument upon the top of his humming monitor, the background set to a skillful watercolor of a gaunt and shirtless, grey skinned creature clutching itself amidst a forest of urban sprawl and a bleak rain. Touching his cuticle to the power switch, his machine's hum faded to silence, mirroring the darkening of the screen. Turning away slowly, unhindered by the pitch black space in which he inhabited, he stripped off his shirt, discarded it, and threw it into the general direction of the hamper. Solemnly removing a lengthy shell necklace, he slid the catch on his slide belt and coiled it into a roll, placing it onto his battered dresser. Finally pulling the deep purple elastic from his mid-back pony tail, he cast back the covers on his frameless mattress and laid himself down for the night.


End file.
